Bound By Oath by IJ

On this episode, we recover a lost part of the Fourth Amendment that the Supreme Court essentially erased in 1960. In the case of Jones v. United States , the Court ignored text, history, and tradition, and disfigured the Warrant Clause, allowing law enforcement to knock down doors based on mere hearsay and with scant consequences for lying or mistakes. Jones was wrong the day it was decided, and...

On this episode: the story of Pullman abstention, the first of several abstention doctrines the Supreme Court invented to let federal judges decline to decide cases that they have jurisdiction to decide. Click here for transcript. Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co.

Next week, the Supreme Court is going to hear a huge civil rights case that no one is talking about—because the legal issue before the Court is the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, an obscure and slightly treasonous doctrine that lets federal judges throw worthy cases out of court without reaching the merits. On this episode, we examine the doctrine’s impact as well as its origins, including the lif...

In our final episode of the season, we head to Indian Country and survey several strands of Supreme Court precedent that prevent Native Americans from putting their property to peaceful and productive use. Click here for transcript. United States v. Kagama Cobell v. Norton

The Fifth Amendment says that the government must pay just compensation when it takes private property for public use, a command that, regrettably, is often treated as a mere suggestion. On this episode, we take a look at a variety of gambits and flim-flammeries that let the government take property without paying for it. Click here for episode transcript. Agins v. Tiburon First English v. County...

In 1973, federal narcotics agents raided a pair of homes in Collinsville, Illinois by mistake. They didn’t find any drugs, but they did terrorize two innocent families. The incident sparked nationwide outrage, and in response Congress passed legislation crafting a legal remedy for victims of federal law enforcement abuses. Over the years, however, lower courts have chipped away at the law to...

Government officials must obtain a warrant before forcibly entering a home (absent consent or an emergency). That rule goes back to the Founding. But in a series of cases, culminating in Camara v. San Francisco in 1967, the Supreme Court announced an ahistorical exception, holding that the Fourth Amendment is less protective when it is a health inspector, rather than a police officer, knocking at...

In 2020, a police SWAT team blew up Vicki Baker’s house after a fugitive barricaded himself inside. On this episode, we ask: who pays the tab when the government damages or destroys private property for the public good — the unlucky owner or the public as a whole? Click here for episode transcript. Pumpelly v. Green Bay & Mississippi Canal Company Armstrong v. United States

Civil forfeiture is a civil rights nightmare, allowing police and prosecutors to seize billions of dollars’ worth of property annually—cash, cars, houses, bank accounts, and more—without charging anyone with a crime, let alone obtaining a conviction. On this episode, we trace the rise of the modern forfeiture regime in the 1970s and 80s, and we look at forfeiture’s historic roots. Click here...

In 2005, in the case of Kelo v. New London , the Supreme Court allowed officials to seize and raze an entire neighborhood of well-maintained homes and businesses in the hopes that someone else could build fancier homes and businesses. According to the dissenters, the majority’s opinion effectively deleted the provision of the U.S. Constitution requiring that takings be for a “public us...

On this episode: Berman v. Parker , the Supreme Court’s decision in 1954 to abandon previous constitutional limits on the government’s power to take property from Person A to give it to Person B. The decision greenlit the era of urban renewal, which saw over a thousand cities across the country seize and bulldoze entire neighborhoods en masse. Click here for episode transcript. Berman...

On this episode, we take a break from case law and go way back to the beginning to examine the origins and justifications of private property. Click here for episode transcript. Tyler v. Hennepin County

On this episode we return to the subject of zoning. With the doors to federal courthouses barred shut, advocates for reforming zoning have turned to state courts and state constitutions. Most famously, in 1975, the New Jersey Supreme Court took a look at a zoning ordinance that made it illegal to build low- and moderate-income housing in the township of Mount Laurel and said in no uncertain terms:...

In 1926, in the case of Euclid v. Ambler , the Supreme Court upheld zoning, giving elected officials and city planners vast, new, and largely unchecked power to tell people what they can and cannot do with their own private property. On this episode: the story of the lawsuit that changed everything for American property rights plus the personalities who made it happen. Click here for episode trans...

On Episode 3, we journey back to a lost world: the world before zoning. And we take a look at a trio of historic property rights cases. In In re Lee Sing , San Francisco officials tried to wipe Chinatown off the map. In Buchanan v. Warley , Louisville, Ky. officials mapped out where in the city residents were allowed to live based on their race. And in Hadacheck v. Sebastian , a Los Angeles city c...

In 1922, Scranton, Pennsylvania was said to be on the verge of collapsing into the vast coal mines beneath the city; residents, buildings, and streets alike were being swallowed up by “suddenly yawning chasms.” State legislators responded by unanimously passing a law meant to save the region, where about a million people lived, from total desolation. But when the law reached the Supreme Court, the...

In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment’s protections against warrantless searches do not apply to “open fields.” Which means that government agents can jump over fences, ignore No Trespassing signs, and roam private land at will. There are no limits. On this episode, we talk to Richard and Linda Thornton, whose property in rural Maine was at the center of the...

Season 3 of Bound By Oath is coming soon! Click here for transcript.

With the doors to federal court closing on civil rights claims, this final episode of Season 2 heads to new terrain: state court. Click here  for transcript.  Click here  for Episode 1.

In 1983, in the case of Briscoe v. LaHue, the Supreme Court ruled that government employees who commit perjury at trial are absolutely immune from civil liability. On Part 2 of Episode 10, we dig into the Court’s reasoning and the backstory behind Briscoe. We also discuss a special category of officials whom the Supreme…

In 2005, Charles Rehberg annoyed some politically powerful people in his community of Albany, Georgia, and found himself facing serious criminal charges—charges that were completely made up by a rogue prosecutor and could only be sustained because an investigator committed perjury. In Episode 10, we explore the case of Rehberg v. Paulk, which reached the…

On this episode, we take stock of developments in the courts and in Congress since this season began. There’s an update on the first case we talked about this season,  Brownback v. King . We talk about exciting new cases that the Supreme Court is being asked to take up. Plus, some recent decisions in the lower courts that mean that federal officials are functionally—if not by name—entit...

Section 1983 says that “every person” acting under color of state law shall be liable for violating the Constitution. But in 1951, the Supreme Court began to rule that some officials weren’t “persons” within the meaning of Section 1983 and that those officials thus enjoy absolute immunity—no matter how malicious, corrupt, or unconstitutional their conduct may be. On E...

In 1978, the Supreme Court held that individuals can sue local governments for constitutional violations in federal court. Indeed, the Court held that Congress had always intended for such suits to be available — ever since it passed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. However, the standard that the Court says plaintiffs must meet to get their municipal liability claims before a jury is exceedingly high...

In 2012, Little Rock police officer Josh Hastings shot and killed 15-year-old Bobby Moore and lied about how it happened. Hastings had a long history of untruthfulness and so did many of the officers who trained him and supervised him. And the Little Rock Police Department had a history of turning a blind eye to excessive force by its officers. So when Bobby’s mother sued over his death, she...